Comics Fondle

I’m mad at John Rozum and I shouldn’t be. Even if the lame ending was his idea… there’s really no other way to end his two issue arc, because he’s not writing the third issue. Rozum, like most fill-in writers I’d assume (how would I know–I avoid most DC comics like the plague), writes an intelligent, engaging script, one harkening back to the simpler, more serialized, less trade-oriented days of yesteryear. The Scarecrow decides he isn’t scary enough and goes crazy on Gotham City. At one point, Gordon says he’s gotten worse than the Joker… I mean, it’s a great set-up for a new team on a book. Maybe I’m just irate because Rozum’s doing a fill-in.

The good things: Rozum’s Gotham City is alive in a particular, self-sustaining way. It’s a Gotham City improved by Batman, one where women (even Bruce Wayne’s temporary romantic interests) can walk thingse streets in safety. It’s a rocking move for two reasons–first, because–damn, I think I might have forgotten. It’s rocking because it sets up a place changed. Batman’s made a difference. Even though it is a little pervy when Bruce Wayne’s love interest is telling him how she remembers it before and she appears to have been in middle school at that time. I want to see the story where Bruce dates one of Tim Drake’s college classmates. But Rozum handles the city stuff real well… easier to care about faceless victims if they at least live somewhere realized in the imagination.

The story’s also good, the plotting. There’s not much of a mystery and Batman’s big clue seems like something he should have gotten a whole lot earlier, but whatever. It’s fine.

The not so good: I am a fan of Tom Mandrake, have been for twelve years or something. Longer–like fourteen or fifteen or sixteen–long time. I hate the way he looks on this glossy paper. There’s no life in the figures, they look static, his framing looks odd. It shouldn’t, it’s the same framing as when it was on newsprint… on the gloss, it just comes off artificial (I think, recently, I’ve had this problem before regarding paper stock).

At the beginning of the two-parter, at the middle of it, I thought I’d have a different post to make, but good intentions and some real solid work can’t fix a bad ending.

C

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